Combine all the ingredients except the milk in a large bowl with clean hands. The saffron you can snip into smaller pieces and scatter over.

Knead just until it all comes together to form a cohesive ball – the dough will not and should not be perfectly smooth, just hold together well and it will be on the harder side. If you cannot achieve this without the milk then add 1/2 tbsp of the milk and knead one more time. Do not add too much milk.

Set the dough aside and let it rest for at least two hours. Overnight is fine as well. In an hour or two you should see that the dough has taken off a little bit of a sheen. If it hasn’t then add a half tbsp of ghee and knead it in.

When you are ready to cook heat ghee on a low flame in a wide pot (at least 8 inches). Heating ghee to the right temperature is key. A small ball of dough put into the ghee should sink to the bottom and instantly start slowly sizzling, gradually rising up and frying golden not brown. If it isn’t rising the ghee is not hot enough, if it is darkening fast then add more ghee to bring down the temperature.

Roll out the dough for the tikiyaan on a lightly floured surface (flour more if the dough is too sticky to handle) and roll out to about 1/8 of an inch or sugar cookie thickness. The tikiyaan will puff up a little when cooked. Use your cutter of choice – I used the top of a babyfood jar but you can use any thing clean and round and cut out the tikiyaan.

Fry just one first to make sure it is frying correctly, cook till the center looks slightly golden and the edges a little more so – about 2.5 minutes on one side and 2 on the other. If you overcook them they will be ok the day off, but considerably crunchier the next day. The tiki will have a craggier surface on on side and that is totally fine. 

If you are happy with the outcome then fry 5 at a time,  adding ghee as needed to the pot. Be careful when you flip them, gentle is the way to go. Do remember that as the ghee level draws down the tikiyaan will brown faster, add ghee as needed.

Tikiyaan keep well for weeks in a tightly sealed container.

My 2-inch cutter yielded about 26-28 mini tikiyaan with this amount of dough.